Final Version - 'Malice'

Preliminary Task

W.H

Evaluation Q5

Q5. How did you attract/address your audience?

To discover our audience's reactions to our film, we created a questionnaire for people of our own age to fill out, and we gave it to about 17 people. This is a clean copy of our questionnaire:

We annotated our film to clearly show the results of our audience displayed alongside the shots which were particularly successful/unsuccessful:

To see the actual annotations, you must click the link: 

Annotated Version

Evaluation Q6

Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this film opening?

After some practice in the lessons and using it to make our short film ‘The Package’ and our preliminary task, it was pretty simple and easy to use the camera and tripod. We only faced a couple of issues, one of which was sometimes it was extremely difficult to get a good pan that didn’t wobble which is something that happened a couple of times but we managed to cut these parts out in our actual film. Another problem we faced was remembering to get the shot level on the spirit level on the tripod as it was always annoying if we looked back on shots that weren’t particularly in line.

Although we planned to use lights in scenes that we thought would be too dark, we managed to use the natural light which actually gave a more gritty and British feel so was actually a positive. 

As we used little diegetic sounds whilst filming, we didn’t use the microphone a lot. One of the problems we faced when filming in doors was that it sounded very quiet on the microphone and very muffled. For this we used the sound from the camera which worked better as it was clearer and of higher quality. In the opening running shots, it was difficult to get a good background noise of high quality as there were always people talking in the background so we managed to find a good busy street sound effect on the website ‘SoundFX Now.’

            

We also used these types of websites for other sounds in our piece, especially the heartbeat and explosion noise in the flashback. We trawled through a number of different copyright free music websites to find the perfect piano piece which we finally found on www.freeplaymusic.com.

Both Bea and I were very used to Macs so it was very easy for us to navigate ourselves around the internet and files. However, neither of us had used Final Cut Pro which initially took some time to get used to as it was very complicated to get the exact effects that you wanted. However, after editing ‘The Package’ together, we were pretty sure how to use the basics and then we learnt specialized actions along the way whilst editing our final piece. 

Evaluation Q4

Q4. Who would be the audience of your film?

Towards the start of our planning, we decided our target audience would be people aged 15-24, therefore we decided the certification of our film would be a 15. We thought a 12A certificate would prove too young, as children under the age of 15 may be mentally not mature enough for the theme and idea of rape in our film. On the ‘bbfc’ website, it states that a film with the certificate of 15 must have ‘appropriate treatment’ for 15 year olds. It also says ‘No-one under 15 is allowed to see a 15 film at the cinema or buy/rent a ‘15’ rated DVD.  15 rated works are not suitable for children under 15 years of age.’

Works that are certificated as ‘15’ could include:

·      ‘Strong violence

·      Frequent strong language

·      Portrayals of sexual activity

·      Strong verbal references to sex

·      Sexual nudity

·      Brief scenes of sexual violence or verbal references to sexual violence

·      Discriminatory language or behavior

·      Drug taking’

This is also stated on the ‘bbfc’ website as the official guidelines of a 15 rated film.

There would be a scene of Ally being raped in ‘Malice’, and although the audience does not get to see the full scene graphically and in detail, the scene would still be clear and what had happened would be obvious.

Another reason we chose the certificate 15 is because we want to attract an older audience, and we would not want them to be put off by a younger certification such as a 12 or a PG. If the film was one of these certifications, the audience may think the film would not be mature enough to qualify as a film they would usually like and want to see. 

To discover our audience's reactions to our film, we created a questionnaire for people of our own age to fill out, and we gave it to about 17 people. This is a clean copy of our questionnaire:

Evaluation Q3

Q3. What kind of institution might distribute your media product and why?

Bea and Willa's Evaluation Question 3

The institution that would most likely want to distribute our film would most probably be the Commercial Art House. 

Firstly, although the Commercial Art House cinema chain is actually quite popular and large, our film would require small screening places in comparison to the City Centre cinema style of Multi-Screen Cinema. This is because our film generally is aimed at a younger generation who are more interested in studying film than always going to see mainstream action thrillers in mainstream cinemas, and so therefore makes our audience much smaller and so probably would not attract enough people for a place in a huge cinema.

Secondly, because our film obviously is, and looks, low budget (especially as it is obviously shot in England without Hollywood actors), our film may not attract the larger audience for mainstream films, such as Drive. Therefore, if distributed in a Multi-Screen or Multiplex cinema, the majority of people who went there to see mainstream films would not want to watch our film.

Our low budget appeal also means that if our film was distributed in real life, it would be impossible to have enough money to advertise it on a big enough scale for it to feature in main-stream cinemas. Because of our low budget, we also would not be able to carry on distributing our film over a number of weeks in Multiplex cinemas that tend to show the same film repeated over a series of weeks. By distributing it within a 'indie', arthouse cinema, people would come to see it, knowing that it would be of low budget. 

Evaluation Q2

Q2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our thriller film opening represents particular social group in a subtle way. The main character in the film is Ally Quinn, who is a nineteen-year-old teenager. Our target audience age is 15-24, and our main character represents a member of our target audience. Our film is also probably appealing to around 60% female and around 40% male. The fact that our main character is female also helps to attract this audience. We are representing a middle class, comfortable group of young people, and the person who has committed the crime (Jasper Thomas) is also from this target audience.

It could be said that our media product presents teenagers or adolescents in a way that fits in with the stereotype of the idea that street crime and crime in general is mostly committed by men. However, we want the audience to be unsure as to whether Jasper Thomas has actually committed the rape or if he has just been falsely accused of committing a rape. Also, it fits in with the stereotype that it is usually younger men or teenagers that commit street crime.

Ally Quinn is a young, British, wealthy girl. If Ally turned out to be innocent and simply be the victim of a rape, the social group of young girls would represented in a rather stereotypical way in the idea that they are vulnerable, and targeted by rape and other crimes. However, if Ally turned out to be guilty of making up the fact that she had been raped by Jasper, she would portray the social group of young girls in a different way, and imply that they are prone to attention seeking and making up events or exaggerating events to make themselves seem like the innocent person in the situation.

If Jasper were to be innocent, his social group would be being presented totally differently to if he was guilty. It would make the group of young British wealthy males seem less threatening and more respectable and fair. This would go against many stereotypes of young males being irrespective of the law and committing crimes on innocent people. It would also go against or flip the stereotype of men generally targeting women.

Overall, our media product represents youth as prone to committing crime whilst also becoming the victims of it. However, we have deliberately left the question of whether Ally Quinn or Jasper Thomas is the guilty person in the scenario, which would determine whether the film went with the stereotype and represented males as more prone to committing crime or going against the stereotype, and having a female law breaker.

Evaluation Q1

Q1. In what ways does your film opening use, develop or challenge forms or conventions of real films?